|
(moved from the old YW site)
Not all war stories are heroic and this one certainly isn't, but when that's all you've got, you have to make the best of it.
In my battalion in Vietnam, every month the officers would hold a "hail and farewell" party welcoming the new officers and celebrating the departure of those whose tours were up. At these shindigs, they would present each departing officer with a shield-shaped wooden plaque that had the battalion name, crests, etc, and the recipient's name and rank, etc. on it. Typical knick-knacks that officers accumulate when ticket punching that they probably take home and give to their kids to play with and never look at again.
There was a shop in Saigon that our unit had been buying these from for years, apparently. It had developed that certain junior enlisted men would go into town to place the order for the plaques, go off and play for a while, then go back and get the finished plaques. The officers themselves did not care to go into Saigon, as it was considered dangerous. Certain junior enlisted men were quite fond of the chore, as it offered certain diversions from normal duties, and was of course done on the clock. This duty was kind of handed down from EM to EM as they went home and another wanted to assume the goof-off duty. The officer in charge of the fund would give us the necessary money and off the two or three of us would go.
My first such trip took place around Oct, 1970 and I went with one of the older hands at it. He was a college grad and already had some boozing experience under his belt. I was only 20 and was a neophyte drinker. We stopped the Nguyen Su shop and placed the order for the plaques with the old mamasan who ran the place. With the first part of our mission accomplished, off we went to Tu Do Street, which was where all the action was.
We stopped at a couple of bars on Tu Do Street, and settled into the one where the bar fight eventually ensued that I described earlier. We got cleaned out of all our money there. Back out on the street, the guy I was with, Mark R., (I'll leave his last name out, since he's a reporter for CNN now and probably wouldn't want to remember this nonsense) said to me, "Well, I guess we'll just have to go back and get the plaques now." To which I said something like, "And pay for them with what? We spent all our money in the bars." He said, "You mean ALL the money? Even the officers' money?" I said, "That's what happened."
So there we stood, contemplating our situation. If we went back to the post without the plaques, it would be very embarrassing to explain to the officers why/how we were empty-handed. Finally, I said something like, "All we can do is go back and see if the mamasan will trust us for the money." Mark R. responded with something like, "Do you think any gook shop keeper is going to trust a G.I. to take their goods and come back with the money? No way is she going to do that." I said, "I don't think we have any choice; we've at least got to try it."
So, we went back to where our jeep was parked; we must have had a few piastres to give to the little kid we "hired" to watch it for us while we were inside. Mark had to drive; I was pretty snockered by this time. He'd had about the same amount to drink but was more of a seasoned drinker.
We arrived back at the Nguyen Su shop, and went inside and asked for the mamasan in charge. She came out and one look at us standing there, swaying, beery-breathed, and she knew what had happened. Slurring my speech, I told her that we had "lost" our money (true in a sense) and we needed the plaques that night and could we bring the money back in a couple of days? She squinted at us closely, then said something like, "OK, you GI bling back money nest time." Mark and I were both stunned. That old leather-skinned bag had a heart under there after all. No doubt, she had seen all this foolishness before; she had signs and plaques in her display window in French that had been made for French military customers who had never come back to pick them up.
I made a special trip into Saigon a couple of days later to pay her off
|
Login
Register
FAQ
